With the pope summoning cardinals to Rome last week and Thursday’s arrest of a former Boston-area priest on rape charges, almost no one these days would deny that sexual abuse is a problem within the Catholic Church.
But finding a widely accepted solution to the problem is a much more complicated issue, a group of about 30 people said Thursday night in a forum at the Sheil Catholic Center.
“There are so many issues and levels of emotion that it’s very hard to sort through the conversation,” said the Rev. Kenneth Simpson, Sheil’s director, after the forum.
Participants at the forum, made up mostly of Sheil attendees, gathered in both large- and small-group discussions and created lists of concerns and questions surrounding the sexual abuse issue. They also listened to presentations by Simpson and two local therapists who work with sexual abuse victims and offenders.
During the discussions, participants heavily criticized the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church that has allowed the abuse to be kept secret and bars civilian involvement from the upper-level administration.
Norbert Budde, an Evanston resident who attends Sheil, said Catholic review boards should include civilian representatives.
“For me, the issue is very simple: Cops protect cops, and priests protect priests,” Budde said. “It’s the management that’s the failure.”
But therapist speaker Becky Palmer, director of administration for the Center for Contextual Change in Oak Park, said the problem lies deeper than the structure the church’s management.
“The question is, how do these people get into management, and who supported them?” said Palmer, who works with clergy in the Chicago area. “Who continues to support them? It’s an old boys’ club, from my perspective.”
Evanston resident and Sheil attendee Jim O’Neill said the structure of the Catholic Church too closely resembles an absolute monarchy.
“If it was a constitutional monarchy even, I could live with it,” O’Neill said. “But the pope might as well be the czar. It’s a feudal, medieval setup.”
O’Neill’s wife, Gretchen O’Neill, said lay members of the Catholic Church rarely receive the chance to communicate with the upper-level administration.
“How many times have you sat down to dinner with a bishop?” she asked during the small-group discussion.
Despite the criticisms, Simpson said other cities look up to the Archdiocese of Chicago’s system. The Chicago system contains an independent review board of lay people with a member who is required to report sexual abuse cases to the civil authorities, he said.
Forum participants also argued about the connection between sexual abuse and the sexual orientation of priests as well as the issue of women in the church. They cited media portrayal and definitions of “no tolerance” as stumbling blocks.
Toward the end of the forum, Skokie resident John Shea expressed frustration with the evening’s progress.
“I think we ought to shut up a while, until we have thought about what the problem is,” said Shea, who attends Sheil. “Tonight, other than some very incisive comments, all I have heard is people talking past each other.”
Whatever the issues surrounding sexual abuse, however, trust within the Catholic Church has suffered a great loss, Simpson said.
“Any human community depends on trust,” he said. “So we as a community are in trouble, because that trust has been broken.”
Jason Renken, one of three students who attended the forum, said the evening’s talks did enough by beginning a discussion of the issue.
“They’re very tough issues to address, but they’re also ones that need to be addressed,” said Rencken, a McCormick senior.
